Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should ease restrictions on sales of foreclosed properties and let individual investors buy up to 50 each, says Lewis S. Ranieri.

When looking for fraud, merchants and card issuers typically see only their half of a customer interaction, and getting useful data can be like listening to one half of a phone call. A London payment processor seeks to change this by giving both players the full conversation.

Sandler O'Neill & Partners analyst Kevin Fitzsimmons on Friday lowered his 2012 earnings estimates for 11 regional and community banks amid concern about weak loan demand and mounting pressure on net interest margins.

The Mortgage Bankers Association will resume running the day-to-day operations of its MISMO subsidiary on Dec. 1, taking the task back from Merscorp. Discussions on the move intensified amid MERS' regulatory scrutiny.

Shareholders at Nara Bancorp and Center Financial have approved the planned merger of the two Los Angeles companies.

Two reports by the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Inspector General are critical of the agency for the lack of accredited examiners and its failure to force Fannie Mae to create an oversight program.

RICHMOND, Va. – New Generations FCU opened a branch inside North Richmond School Wednesday morning.

VIENNA, Va. – Navy FCU will open a new branch Monday near Fort Carson, Colo., to serve 66,000 Department of Defense personnel and their families.

Some of the biggest players in Wall Street's mortgage finance assembly line — including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group — are asking a federal judge to dismiss a nearly $2 billion civil fraud lawsuit filed by the trustee of a defunct mortgage lender.

Dodd-Frank will prove hugely expensive and still fail in its main mission of preventing the next financial crisis. Blame Washington and its flawed assumption that it can micro-manage the banking system.

A district attorney in Dallas is challenging the mortgage industry's system for electronically transferring mortgages, alleging that Bank of America and others filed false documents through and circumvented mortgage registration requirements.

To hedge against bad surprises in a seller's portfolio, some buyers are making part of the payout contingent on the performance of certain loans or batches of them. If things go well, the practice can help the seller, too.

First National was looking to sell – for the second time. Kevin Fowler, whose return to banking as president of Rockwall Bancshares followed a failed bid for office, was looking to enter the Dallas market. A match was made.

Picking up where early-Internet entrepreneurs left off a decade ago, Jingit is working with U.S. Bancorp to revitalize the business model of compensating consumers for watching ads online.

Credit card company Discover Financial Services has been a frequent buyer in the past year as it tries to expand beyond its traditional card lending and network roots. But now it is developing new businesses internally, including a new online checking account it plans to launch at the end of 2012.

Battered by losses on soured loans, First Place Financial Corp. in Warren, Ohio, said this week that it is planning to restate its earnings for its past three fiscal years.

Revised lending data released Thursday by the Federal Reserve Board showed a much bigger role for the government-sponsored enterprises than previously estimated.

Some of the biggest players in banking's mortgage-finance assembly line — including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group — are asking a federal judge to dismiss a nearly $2 billion civil fraud lawsuit filed by the trustee of a defunct mortgage lender.

Just as Discover is discontinuing single-use account numbers, MasterCard is making them a central feature of a small-business offering.

Kenya is proving to be a hub of mobile finance innovation in the developing world, even as mobile-payment systems in the U.S. struggle to build an audience.